Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s first-ever action series, Fubar, has terminated Queen Charlotte‘s three-week reign at the top of Netflix’s English TV streaming list.
The show, in which he and Monica Barbaro play a dad and daughter who come to find they’re both secret CIA operatives, landed in the top spot in its first week of release, with 88.94 million hours viewed.
The show was also in the top 10 in 90 countries around the world, according to the streamer.
Coming in second place was XO, Kitty, the spinoff of To All The Boys, which had 63.78 million hours viewed.
Queen Charlotte settled for third last week, with 42.9 million hours viewed on Netflix’s English TV list.
On the movie side of things, Jennifer Lopez‘s action film The Mother kept its #1 slot on the English movies list for the third straight week.
Travis Scott let fans hear a little bit of his collaboration with Bad Bunny while at a club in Monaco. He was also spotted filming a music video in France.
Beyoncé‘s Renaissance Tour recently made a stop in London, where she paid homage to the late Tina Turner with a performance of Tina’s “River Deep – Mountain High.” A few celebrities have already attended Bey’s tour, including The-Dream and Future, who previously claimed he was bigger than Jay-Z.
More of the stars featured on Metro Boomin‘s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse soundtrack have been unveiled. In addition to previously announced features Future, James Blake and Don Toliver, Lil Uzi Vert,Toian, Swae Lee, JID, Coi Leray, 21 Savage, Offset, A$AP Rockyand more will make appearances.
Erykah Badu will make a cameo in Netflix’s adaptation of August Wilson‘s The Piano Lesson. She’s bringing “her soulful sound and eclectic style” to the film via musical performances.
NLE Choppa is grateful for his 2-year-old daughter, Clover. Ahead of her third birthday next month, he shared a heartfelt message to her on Instagram, crediting her for giving him “something to live for” when he was “contemplating suicide.”
Hit-Boy‘s next project, Surf or Drown 2, is loading, according to a recent tweet. While announcing the project, he dropped the video for “Reckless & Ratchet” featuring his father, Big Hit.
A musical with a score by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim is getting pushback from a musicians union, because it doesn’t use a live band.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians is unhappy that the show Here Lies Love plans to use a prerecorded track, as it has in previous runs of the show.
“A show with no live music and just pre-recorded tracks is absolutely an existential threat to Broadway- and is a cultural threat to musical theater worldwide,” Local 802 President and Executive Director Tino Gagliardi says. He suggests that “by using just pre-recorded tracks it not only cheapens the art it’s putting jobs and livelihoods at risk.”
Local 802 says their agreement with the Broadway League requires any musical in a Broadway theater to have at least 19 musicians. The show has reportedly asked for a “special situation” stipulation to bypass the rule. Adrian Bryan-Brown, a spokesperson for the production, says the “process is ongoing,” adding they “will continue to work in good faith with the union to move through the steps of the contractual process.”
Hear Lies Love originally played at New York’s Public Theater 10 years ago, and had runs in London and Seattle. It’s described as a “disco pop” musical that puts audiences in an immersive setting, with standing room tickets so the audience can dance through the show. Its story is a dramatic telling of the Philippines’ former first lady Imleda Marcos‘ rise to power and then her hard downfall.
The musical will begin preview performances at the Broadway Theatre on June 17 and then open July 20.
(CHICAGO) — More than 50 people were shot, 11 fatally, over a violent Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, police said.
The gunshot victims included two toddlers who were accidentally shot and wounded in separate incidents and two teenagers, a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, who were hurt in unrelated shootings while standing on sidewalks, according to a review by ABC News of the weekend incident reports from the Chicago Police Department.
On Tuesday, police officials said at least 53 people were shot across the city in 42 separate incidents that occurred between 6 p.m. on Friday and 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
Besides the 11 people who were fatally shot over the weekend, an additional person was fatally stabbed, according to police.
The string of shootings occurred as newly-elected Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s safety plan was deployed over the Memorial Day weekend. Johnson’s initiative supports violence prevention programs, and youth outreach efforts by funding the work of more than 250 grassroots organizations across 24 communities on the West and South Sides of Chicago.
The spike in gun violence in Chicago comes as city leaders were seeing declines in both homicides and shootings this year. Before this past weekend, homicides in Chicago were down 7% from the 228 slayings that occurred in the first five months of 2022, according to the Chicago Police Department’s crime statistics. Shooting incidents are also down 9% this year compared to last year, crime statistics say.
“This weekend, what you saw on display is that everybody recognizes that it’s going to take all of us to unite this city and build a better, stronger, safer city,” Johnson told reporters at a community event on Monday.
Johnson acknowledged that “we have a lot of work to do” to curb gun violence in Chicago and said poverty continues to be one of the primary reasons for the shootings and homicides.
“Poverty didn’t go away over the weekend,” Johnson said. “We understand that when communities have been disinvested in and traumatized, that you’re seeing the manifestation of that trauma.”
Seven of the 11 gunshot homicides occurred on Saturday, according to police.
The first homicide of the holiday weekend unfolded just before 1 a.m on Saturday in the Beverly View neighborhood, when a 33-year-old man was discovered unresponsive on a sidewalk with a gunshot wound under his left armpit, according to police. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and no arrests have been announced in the incident.
Just after 2 a.m. Saturday, a 35-year-old man was found on a sidewalk in the Lake View East neighborhood suffering from a bullet wound to the chest, according to police. The victim, William Hair, was taken to Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. No arrests have been announced.
“Senseless. It’s the only word for it,” Hair’s brother, Matthew Hair, told ABC Chicago station WLS-TV.
He said his brother was walking home from a bar with his best friend when a car pulled up alongside them. The occupants of the vehicle shot Hair while attempting to rob him and his friend.
Around 2:09 a.m. on Saturday, four people were shot in a drive-by shooting, including a 69-year-old woman who was killed, according to police. Witnesses told police that the gunfire came from a vehicle and was aimed at a car containing three men, who all suffered gunshot wounds. Police later discovered the 69-year-old woman alone in another car, suffering from a bullet wound to the side. She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Just before 3 a.m. on Saturday, a man and a woman were both shot in the face while standing on a sidewalk. Both victims were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where one of them, a 36-year-old man, was pronounced dead, according to police. No arrests have been announced.
At about 3:20 a.m. Saturday, a 22-year-old man, identified by police as Jonathan Salgado, was shot in the chest while standing on a sidewalk in the Little Village neighborhood in the southwest area of the city, police said. Salgado was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Also on Saturday, an unidentified man, described as 25 to 30 years old, was found shot multiple times in the Humboldt Park area in the northwest section of the city and was later pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, police said.
A 20-year-old man was shot in the back around 10 p.m. Saturday as he walked along a street, police said. The victim was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
About an hour later, a 26-year-old man was shot and killed when he exited a gas station in the West Woodlawn section of the city, police said.
The string of killings continued on Sunday in the Fernwood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, when around 12:30 a.m. a 20-year-old man was shot multiple times by two assailants, who remained at large Tuesday morning, according to police.
Two people were shot, one fatally, around 2:09 a.m. Sunday. A 35-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were found critically injured inside a car were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where the man was pronounced dead, according to police.
In addition to the 11 fatal shootings, a 42-year-old woman was found stabbed to death just after midnight Saturday in an alley in the Austin neighborhood of the city. A 64-year-old man, police identified as Arnel Smith, was arrested and charged with murder in the fatal stabbing, police said.
Among the victims shot and wounded over the weekend was a 77-year-old man, who was shot in the back. The man was among three people wounded in a drive-by shooting that unfolded around 1:43 a.m. Monday in the Burnside neighborhood, police said. No arrests were announced in the incident.
On Saturday, a 21-year-old man was shot in the thigh by a 24-year-old man he allegedly approached and fired shots at, police said. The man who was shot was arrested after being taken to Holy Cross Hospital for treatment. The man who shot him has a permit to legally carry a firearm and was not charged, police said.
(CHICAGO) — More than 50 people were shot, 11 fatally, over a violent Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, police said.
The gunshot victims included two toddlers who were accidentally shot and wounded in separate incidents and two teenagers, a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, who were hurt in unrelated shootings while standing on sidewalks, according to a review by ABC News of the weekend incident reports from the Chicago Police Department.
On Tuesday, police officials said at least 53 people were shot across the city in 42 separate incidents that occurred between 6 p.m. on Friday and 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
Besides the 11 people who were fatally shot over the weekend, an additional person was fatally stabbed, according to police.
The string of shootings occurred as newly-elected Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s safety plan was deployed over the Memorial Day weekend. Johnson’s initiative supports violence prevention programs, and youth outreach efforts by funding the work of more than 250 grassroots organizations across 24 communities on the West and South Sides of Chicago.
The spike in gun violence in Chicago comes as city leaders were seeing declines in both homicides and shootings this year. Before this past weekend, homicides in Chicago were down 7% from the 228 slayings that occurred in the first five months of 2022, according to the Chicago Police Department’s crime statistics. Shooting incidents are also down 9% this year compared to last year, crime statistics say.
“This weekend, what you saw on display is that everybody recognizes that it’s going to take all of us to unite this city and build a better, stronger, safer city,” Johnson told reporters at a community event on Monday.
Johnson acknowledged that “we have a lot of work to do” to curb gun violence in Chicago and said poverty continues to be one of the primary reasons for the shootings and homicides.
“Poverty didn’t go away over the weekend,” Johnson said. “We understand that when communities have been disinvested in and traumatized, that you’re seeing the manifestation of that trauma.”
Seven of the 11 gunshot homicides occurred on Saturday, according to police.
The first homicide of the holiday weekend unfolded just before 1 a.m on Saturday in the Beverly View neighborhood, when a 33-year-old man was discovered unresponsive on a sidewalk with a gunshot wound under his left armpit, according to police. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and no arrests have been announced in the incident.
Just after 2 a.m. Saturday, a 35-year-old man was found on a sidewalk in the Lake View East neighborhood suffering from a bullet wound to the chest, according to police. The victim, William Hair, was taken to Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. No arrests have been announced.
“Senseless. It’s the only word for it,” Hair’s brother, Matthew Hair, told ABC Chicago station WLS-TV.
He said his brother was walking home from a bar with his best friend when a car pulled up alongside them. The occupants of the vehicle shot Hair while attempting to rob him and his friend.
Around 2:09 a.m. on Saturday, four people were shot in a drive-by shooting, including a 69-year-old woman who was killed, according to police. Witnesses told police that the gunfire came from a vehicle and was aimed at a car containing three men, who all suffered gunshot wounds. Police later discovered the 69-year-old woman alone in another car, suffering from a bullet wound to the side. She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Just before 3 a.m. on Saturday, a man and a woman were both shot in the face while standing on a sidewalk. Both victims were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where one of them, a 36-year-old man, was pronounced dead, according to police. No arrests have been announced.
At about 3:20 a.m. Saturday, a 22-year-old man, identified by police as Jonathan Salgado, was shot in the chest while standing on a sidewalk in the Little Village neighborhood in the southwest area of the city, police said. Salgado was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Also on Saturday, an unidentified man, described as 25 to 30 years old, was found shot multiple times in the Humboldt Park area in the northwest section of the city and was later pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital, police said.
A 20-year-old man was shot in the back around 10 p.m. Saturday as he walked along a street, police said. The victim was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
About an hour later, a 26-year-old man was shot and killed when he exited a gas station in the West Woodlawn section of the city, police said.
The string of killings continued on Sunday in the Fernwood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, when around 12:30 a.m. a 20-year-old man was shot multiple times by two assailants, who remained at large Tuesday morning, according to police.
Two people were shot, one fatally, around 2:09 a.m. Sunday. A 35-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were found critically injured inside a car were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where the man was pronounced dead, according to police.
In addition to the 11 fatal shootings, a 42-year-old woman was found stabbed to death just after midnight Saturday in an alley in the Austin neighborhood of the city. A 64-year-old man, police identified as Arnel Smith, was arrested and charged with murder in the fatal stabbing, police said.
Among the victims shot and wounded over the weekend was a 77-year-old man, who was shot in the back. The man was among three people wounded in a drive-by shooting that unfolded around 1:43 a.m. Monday in the Burnside neighborhood, police said. No arrests were announced in the incident.
On Saturday, a 21-year-old man was shot in the thigh by a 24-year-old man he allegedly approached and fired shots at, police said. The man who was shot was arrested after being taken to Holy Cross Hospital for treatment. The man who shot him has a permit to legally carry a firearm and was not charged, police said.
(CHINA) — A Chinese J-16 jet fighter flew directly in front of an American surveillance plane flying in international airspace over the South China Sea last Friday, forcing the U.S. Air Force plane to fly through the fighter’s wake turbulence and causing the U.S. aircraft to shake.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command labeled the Chinese intercept as “unprofessional” and “an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” and released a video taken from inside the American plane’s cockpit that captured the incident.
“A People’s Republic of China J-16 fighter pilot performed an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver during the intercept of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft, May 26, 2023,” said a statement from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Here is video of the incident where the J-16 flew in front of the RC-135 at a distance of 400 feet, the US plane then flew through its wake — you can see the plane bounce. pic.twitter.com/rRdGfDSR1x
“The PRC pilot flew directly in front of the nose of the RC-135, forcing the U.S. aircraft to fly through its wake turbulence,” said the statement. “The RC-135 was conducting safe and routine operations over the South China Sea in international airspace, in accordance with international law.”
The video released by INDOPACOM captured the moment that the Chinese fighter streaked across the American plane’s flight path at what a U.S. official said was a distance of 400 feet.
Taken from inside the RC-135’s cockpit, presumably by a crew member, the video also captured the moment when the reconnaissance aircraft flew through the wake turbulence causing the aircraft to shake.
American aircraft and ship transiting in the international airspace and waters in the South China Sea are routinely harassed by Chinese ships and aircraft. The American aircraft and warships transit through the region regularly to counter China’s broad territorial maritime claims.
The American statement reaffirmed that the “The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate – safely and responsibly – wherever international law allows, and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Joint Force will continue to fly in international airspace with due regard for the safety of all vessels and aircraft under international law.”
“We expect all countries in the Indo-Pacific region to use international airspace safely and in accordance with international law,” it added.
A senior U.S. defense official speaking Tuesday about Friday’s incident to a small group of reporters expressed the belief that the Chinese harassment is coordinated and increasing in frequency.
“We don’t believe it’s done by pilots operating independently,” said the official. “We believe it’s part of a wider pattern we see in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere.”
The last such incident occurred on Dec. 21, 2022, when a PLA J-11 fighter pilot “performed an unsafe maneuver during an intercept of a U.S. Air force RC-135,” according to INDO-PACOM.
The official noted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other U.S. officials have publicly voiced concern over what they say is an increase in unsafe incidents by Chinese military assets that could have the potential to create an unsafe incident or miscalculation.
The senior defense official said the U.S. would express its concerns about Friday’s incident “through the appropriate, established diplomatic and military channels.”
Austin is headed to Asia this week for meetings with regional defense leaders but he will not meet with his Chinese counterpart as China declined a U.S. offer for a meeting at an international security conference in Singapore.
The senior defense official said the timing of the U.S. military’s release of the video was not tied to that meeting but was instead “subject to the U.S. military declassification process and U.S. diplomatic communication process.”
(TEXAS) — Elizabeth Holmes, the convicted fraudster and founder of failed blood-testing company Theranos, on Tuesday began serving an 11-year sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas.
Holmes, according to a source, self-surrendered with “little fanfare.” She was accompanied by her parents and husband Billy Evans.
She isn’t the only famous face at Bryan: Former “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” cast member Jen Shah entered the minimum-security facility in February after being sentenced to six and a half years for what prosecutors said was a telemarketing scheme targeting the old and vulnerable.
Holmes might have a humbling first job at the prison, according to a former inmate at the facility.
“That is Bryan’s rule,” said Lynn Espejo, who was convicted of defrauding her employer. “The policy is that every new person arriving gets cleared by medical and they have to go work in the kitchen for 90 days.”
That’s not a guarantee, though. Holmes could get a job elsewhere, such as the prison’s education department, and be excused from kitchen work, said Espejo, who now works as a prison reform advocate and was granted compassionate release in 2021 because of COVID-19.
There is also a program in which inmates train service dogs at the facility, or Holmes could teach classes to other inmates, Espejo said.
“Who’s to say Elizabeth Holmes will be in the kitchen tonight,” Espejo said. “By policy, she’s supposed to. But who knows if that’s going to happen?”
Holmes, Espejo told ABC News, will be dressed in a khaki jumpsuit, which is recycled from inmate to inmate, and will be sleeping on what she likened to a “kindergarten mat.”
“That’s basically what it looks like, those kind they fold out at school and take naps on,” Espejo said. “It’s not a good bedding. And you really feel like you’re laying directly on steel.”
There are four units at the prison camp facility, which is among the lowest level security facilities in the federal system.
But Espejo said it isn’t “camp cupcake,” as some describe it. She recalled “dilapidated” conditions when she served time there, including moldy showers and little hot water in the winter.
A source said that every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, movies are shown in common areas.
Holmes won’t be locked behind bars in her cell. Rather she’ll live in a room with two bunks and folding chairs in the middle.
Espejo said the hardest adjustment is being alone.
“I think it’ll be a cultural shock to her. I know it was for me when I first got there,” she said. “Missing your family is gut wrenching.”
ABC News’ Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
(FLORIDA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday held a “campaign kickoff” outside Des Moines, Iowa, returning to a crucial early nominating state for the first time since announcing he is running for president.
DeSantis’ swing through Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday began Tuesday night with a speech in Clive at the Eternity Church. Before that, he and wife Casey met with “15 local pastors who will be praying over the family and the Governor’s candidacy,” a spokesperson said.
“Our great American comeback starts by sending [President] Joe Biden back to his basement in Delaware,” DeSantis declared at the start of his remarks, after walking onstage with his wife. His campaign said more than 1,000 people were in attendance, including in an overflow space.
DeSantis went on to criticize the “failed policies” flowing out of Washington — on crime, on the southern border, on energy production and on the state of the economy, including the cost of living.
More broadly, pointing to some of his familiar targets, he attacked “elites” — who had “continued to plunge this nation into the abyss” — and “woke ideology,” which he said unfairly singled out conservatives for unequal treatment.
“if Hunter were a Republican, he would have been in jail years ago,” DeSantis said to loud applause from the crowd, referring to the president’s younger son, who is currently under federal investigation. (Hunter Biden denies wrongdoing.)
Campaigning in the state, which is set to hold the first Republican presidential nominating contest early next year, has long meant up-close-and-personal interactions with voters, who relish their ability to size up White House hopefuls.
But DeSantis has already faced some scrutiny — and “awkward” headlines — about how he handles retail politics, something he is not well known for.
Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, who has a history of doling out influential primary endorsements, told ABC News in an interview before DeSantis’ speech that he believes some of the discussion around DeSantis’ ability to campaign is exaggerated.
“I’ve been around him and I think he connects very well with people one-on-one,” Vander Plaats insisted. “But I think his message is [that] he’s got a lot of results to communicate.”
Tuesday’s kickoff event begins a four-day trip for DeSantis through 12 cities and towns in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, which his campaign has billed as “Our Great American Comeback Tour.”
The governor first announced his presidential run on Twitter along with Elon Musk, though the start of their event last week was overshadowed by tech issues.
“We know our country’s going in the wrong direction. We see it with our eyes and we feel it in our bones,” DeSantis said then, echoing a line from his campaign announcement video: “Decline is a choice. Success is attainable. And freedom is worth fighting for.”
Although Tuesday marked the first day DeSantis visited Iowa as a presidential candidate, it was the third time he has been to the state since the beginning of the year.
Former President Donald Trump is set to return to the state this week, too, following the cancellation of a rally in Des Moines earlier this month due to what his campaign said were tornado threats.
DeSantis enters the 2024 race as Trump’s biggest threat so far for the Republican presidential nomination, early polls show.
Notably, on the day that Trump canceled his Des Moines rally, DeSantis made a surprise appearance in the city instead — and seemed to jab at Trump during his speech Tuesday night when he said of that impromptu event, “The weather was so nice that we felt we just had to come back and pay everyone a bit of a visit.”
An erstwhile ally who backed DeSantis’ first gubernatorial campaign, Trump has been criticizing DeSantis for months, as it became more and more clear DeSantis would run against him in the primary.
Among other issues, Trump targeted DeSantis’ record given high COVID-19 deaths in Florida – while DeSantis has touted how he “cut against the grain” on government restrictions — and said last week that DeSantis “desperately needs a personality transplant.”
In recent days, DeSantis has ramped up his own criticism of the former president, invoking his 20-point reelection win in November — an enormous margin of victory in a famous swing state.
“He started attacking me leading into the midterm election. I don’t know why he did it,” DeSantis said in one radio interview. “Then, after I won a big victory, he wasn’t happy with that.”
“I view myself as a vehicle to bring about the aspirations of the people I represent, not about me personally,” he said. He also accused Trump of “running to the left.”
Vander Plaats predicted that DeSantis’ travels throughout Iowa will give many locals a chance at a first impression and allow DeSantis to draw a persuasive link between what he’s done in Florida and Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ similarly conservative record.
“I think [it’s] part of drawing that connection, because you’re always looking for a familiar ground with the people attending your events, and I think that’d be familiar ground,” Vander Plaats said.
(FLORIDA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday will hold a “campaign kickoff” outside Des Moines, Iowa, returning to a crucial early nominating state for the first time since announcing he is running for president.
DeSantis’ swing through Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday begins Tuesday night with a speech in Clive at the Eternity Church. Before that, he and wife Casey will meet with “15 local pastors who will be praying over the family and the Governor’s candidacy,” a spokesperson said.
Campaigning in the state, which is set to hold the first Republican presidential nominating contest early next year, has long meant up-close-and-personal interactions with voters, who relish their ability to size up White House hopefuls.
But DeSantis has already faced some scrutiny — and “awkward” headlines — about how he handles retail politics, something he is not well known for.
Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, who has a history of doling out influential primary endorsements, told ABC News in an interview that he believes some of the discussion around DeSantis’ ability to campaign is exaggerated.
“I’ve been around him and I think he connects very well with people one-on-one,” Vander Plaats insisted. “But I think his message is [that] he’s got a lot of results to communicate.”
Tuesday’s kickoff event begins a four-day trip for DeSantis through 12 cities and towns in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, which his campaign has billed as “Our Great American Comeback Tour.”
The governor first announced his presidential run on Twitter along with Elon Musk, though the start of their event last week was overshadowed by tech issues.
“We know our country’s going in the wrong direction. We see it with our eyes and we feel it in our bones,” DeSantis said then, echoing a line from his campaign announcement video: “Decline is a choice. Success is attainable. And freedom is worth fighting for.”
Although Tuesday marks the first day DeSantis will visit Iowa as a presidential candidate, this will be the third time he has been to the state since the beginning of the year.
Former President Donald Trump is set to return to the state this week, too, following the cancellation of a rally in Des Moines earlier this month due to what his campaign said were tornado threats.
DeSantis enters the 2024 race as Trump’s biggest threat so far for the Republican presidential nomination, early polls show. (Notably, on the day that Trump canceled his Des Moines rally, DeSantis made a surprise appearance in the city instead.)
An erstwhile ally who backed DeSantis’ first gubernatorial campaign, Trump has been criticizing DeSantis for months, as it became more and more clear DeSantis would run against him in the primary. Among other issues, Trump has targeted DeSantis’ record given high COVID-19 deaths in Florida – while DeSantis has touted how he “cut against the grain” on government restrictions — and said last week that he “desperately needs a personality transplant.”
In recent days, DeSantis has ramped up his own criticism of the former president, invoking his 20-point reelection win in November — an enormous margin of victory in a famous swing state.
“He started attacking me leading into the midterm election. I don’t know why he did it,” DeSantis said in one radio interview. “Then, after I won a big victory, he wasn’t happy with that.”
“I view myself as a vehicle to bring about the aspirations of the people I represent, not about me personally,” he said. He also accused Trump of “running to the left.”
Vander Plaats predicted that DeSantis’ travels throughout Iowa will give many locals a chance at a first impression and allow DeSantis to draw a persuasive link between what he’s done in Florida and Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ similarly conservative record.
“I think [it’s] part of drawing that connection, because you’re always looking for a familiar ground with the people attending your events, and I think that’d be familiar ground,” Vander Plaats said.
(VIRGINIA) — A Virginia man has been arrested for the murder of New Jersey councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour, who was gunned down outside her home in February.
Rashid Ali Bynum, 28, who apparently knew Dwumfour from church, was taken into custody Tuesday morning on charges including first-degree murder, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone announced at a news conference Tuesday.
According to Ciccone, Bynum was a contact in Dwomfour’s phone under the acronym “FCF,” which authorities believe stands for “Fire Congress Fellowship,” a church that the congresswoman was previously affiliated with, “which was also associated with the Champion Royal Assembly, the victim’s church at the time of her death.”
On the day of the shooting, Bynum allegedly searched online for information on the Champion Royal Assembly church and the Sayreville area, according to Ciccone.
In the days before the murder, Bynum allegedly searched online for what magazines were compatible with a specific handgun, she said.
Bynum’s phone traveled from Virginia to New Jersey at the time of the murder, and Bynum’s physical description matched a witness description of the suspect at the scene, Ciccone said.
Officials did not discuss a possible motive and did not take questions from reporters.
Ciccone called it a “complex, extensive case.”
Dwumfour, a business analyst and a part-time emergency medical technician, was elected as a Republican to the Sayreville Borough Council in 2021, defeating an incumbent Democrat.
“There are no words that can be said to you to make you whole,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said to Dwumfour’s family, who attended the press conference. “I did not know Eunice. I wish I had. But I know that she was a public servant.”
“I hope that today is the beginning of a healing process, and also the beginning of a sense of justice,” he added.
